The Grim Reaper Cometh
by Mr. Vash The Stampede
Summary: WARNING: The rating will get worse as the fic continues!. Please R&R. My second Fan-Fic.
1. Disclaimer

Disclamier - I own nothing! Diddly squat!  
  
All I own is the plot, and my own original characters, the rest is owned by the owners. 


	2. Undesirable Losses

"Reaper Two you're coming in low, tighten up." The sound of Reaper One, the squad leader, crackles in Two's flight helmet, slightly distorted from the interference from their target. Two pulls up closer to the rest of the squad, and flicks his thumb over the firing control. "I copy One, missiles armed and ready to fire."  
  
The squadron of Wraith fighters descend on the enemy base on Hargenten IV, their cloaking fields activated. As the target, the enemy's Mobile Command Center, enters the missiles range, the HUD lights up and begins to beep quietly as it works for a lock. A few seconds later the lock is acquired, but the pilots hold back on the trigger before they get the command from Leader.  
  
A second later, Reaper One's voice crackles again, "All units, fire on my mark. Three, two, one, Mark! Open fire!" Everyone in the squadron pulls on the trigger simultaneously, and twenty-four warheads on blue jets of flame leap across the gap separating the fighters from the base.  
  
Suddenly a huge object appears in the forward view, and a few late missiles slam into it. The 'thing' lets out an unholy bellow of pain, and from holes along its side, a cloud of smaller objects emerge like a swarm of locusts.  
  
There is a loud crackle in Two's ear, and Leader's voice, strained, emerges. "It's the Zerg! Retreat! All craft! Retr-" His voice is lost in a burst of static. A shockwave rocks the squadron, even as they turn to retreat. The twisted remains of Reaper One are falling towards the planet below, smoking from the still burning corpse inside.  
  
Two speaks into his microphone attached to his helmet. "One is down! I repeat, down! I am assuming command! Everyone bug out! They can see us even cloaked! Scatter and reform at Genesis base!" He suits actions for words by cranking up to full throttle, dropping his cloaking field so that he can put more power to the engines. Then he finally looks at his scanner display. There are 10 blue dots around his dot, and uncountable hundreds behind them. There is also another uncountable number in front of them.  
  
He looks up through his cockpit, and fires all his remaining missiles at the approaching cloud of Zerg, hoping to blast a hole for the Wraiths to escape through. Dozens of Zerg die, but it seems that for every one dead, another two replace it. Two swears and switches to lasers, strafing one of the giant floating jellyfish. The creature shudders, and suddenly all the Zerg in the surrounding area focus on him.  
  
Two pulls away and puts all energy into engines, blasting away from the planet and leaving the Zerg eating his exhaust. He looks at his scanner. Only he survived. He takes a deep breath, prepares the jump into warp space, and looks up through his cockpit canopy.  
  
Just in time to see a Scourge slam into him.  
  
The Zerg descend on the planet. A few hours later, they leave. All that is left of the planet is a few automated SOS beacons, and the wreckage of twelve Wraith fighters. 


	3. Love Conquors AllExept A Horde Of Nastie...

Disclaimer: I do not own StarCraft, although I wish I did. Blissard owns it; all I own is the plot.  
  
Warning: As promised, this chapter is much more violent and gory! Rated R for ikkyness.  
  
Elsewhere in the planetary system, a Medic is finishing up healing a Marine after a particularly nasty skirmish against a rival for the resources there. The Marine smiles, thanks the Medic, then looks both ways and slips her a piece of paper, with an unit number and a comm. frequency scrawled onto it. The Medic looks at it, and blushes bright red, nodding and flicking the blast shield down over her head. The Marine, smiles more, and skips (Yes, skips. He's that happy) back to his post in the trench. The Medic turns back to her healing duties, getting three more offers like before, but politely turning them down.  
  
The Marine whistles a happy tune as he leans against the earthen wall of the trench. Life couldn't be better, he's got a full clip of ammo, a few more kills and he gets promoted, and he just scored a date with the hottest girl in the base. He double-checks his ammo, just in case. Smiling, he returns to his walking patrol of the trench.  
  
It takes the third gunshot, followed by a crunching sound, to pull the man from his dreaming. He turns the safety off his gauss rifle, and walks briskly towards the source of the gunshots. He sees three spent cartridges, and two trails of blood. One is human; the other he doesn't know what it is. The human trail appears to have been dragged. He switches on his communicator, and reports in the sighting, and the location, then readies his rifle, and follows the trail slowly, ears open for any sound. He rounds a corner, and enters a darkened bunker inset to the trench. He switches on his headlights, and immediately wished he hadn't.  
  
In the middle of the room is what used to be his commanding officer. His head was turned into a bloody pulp from repeated stabbing with a very sharp object. One arm was beside the doorway, the other was lying beside what remains of the head. Of the body, chest down, no-one knows. The chest was carved open, several internal organs seemingly detonated, or removed. From the waist down, it simply was not there. To put it bluntly, the man was dead. Very dead.  
  
The Marine turns his head and leans over, and adds more disgusting features to the room, accompanied by a retching sound. He makes sure the officer's killer is not in the room, then turns and runs as fast as he can back towards Headquarters.  
  
The Marine bursts into the Command Centre, and promptly finds himself staring down the barrels of several gauss rifles, two handguns, and a C-10 canister rifle. For anyone that has stared down multiple barrels, they know that is not fun, even worse if one or more of the fingers on the guns is itchy.  
  
The Marine quickly steps backwards, and stammers out his name and serial number. The guns move back to resting positions or back into their holsters, and the Marine breathes a sigh of relief. The commanding officer walks up to the Marine, "What is this all about, Private?" The Marine salutes quickly, "I was doing my rounds, sir, when I found Lieutenant Charlton.. I don't know how to describe it. He was..butchered."  
  
The officer glares, "Describe it as best you can, Private." The Private nods, and begins to look a bit green at the cheeks, "Well, his head was a mass of pulp, like someone had stabbed it way to many times. His chest was torn open, or blown open, I'm not sure. His arms were not where they were supposed to be...And I couldn't find his legs from the waist down."  
  
The officer's eyes dilate. "The Zerg, Here?! This has to be sent to High Command!" he whirls and points at a creepy-looking guy holding the canister rifle. "You! Get your sorry butt to the Comm. Centre right now! Tell them Code Red, Zerg have been here!" The officer turns back to the Marine, "And you! Good work! You'll get a medal for this..If we can keep this base secure long enough for reinforcements to arrive."  
  
The Marine nods, salutes, and turns, shouldering his gauss rifle and trotting back to his post. "Great, I knew my luck wasn't gonna last." He stands around for ten minutes, and then it starts to rain heavily. "..Oh just great!" He hunkers down under an overhang, and looks around, wishing he had something to do.  
  
He soon gets something to do, when the sounds of screaming, gunfire, and some unholy sounds trail down the trench towards him. He grabs his rifle, barks into his comm. that he has heard sounds of fighting, and is going to investigate, and runs as fast as he can towards the sounds.  
  
He arrives on a battlefield, which should be in an area the size of a gym, but instead is in an area the size of a school classroom. Men and women are spread everywhere. Dead, dying, wounded, any that still have ammo are firing almost non-stop. Through this field of destruction, is a small swarm of aliens the size of large dogs, with large claws. Scattered among the Zerglings are several Hydralisks.  
  
The gauss rifle is instantly brought up to bear, and he sprays a group of Zerglings with metal death. Several of them scream and fall over, twitching, while others are shoved by the bullets impacts, bleeding from multiple wounds, but still fighting. A Hydralisk turns from a Firebat it had just cleaved in two, and comes towards him, hissing like a giant pit viper. The Marine yells, a combination of rage and terror, and unloads the remains of his entire clip into the Hydralisk. The beast bellows in agony, its chest and face torn to shreds by the metal projectiles. It falls to the ground, nearly impaling his killer with one of the scythe-blade arms.  
  
The Marine stumbles out of the way, cursing the bulky armour he's wearing. He soon starts blessing it, as a Zergling leaps and stabs him in the chest. The armour plating saved his life. He quickly blows the Zergling's head off, and jogs over to a group of his allies, where they can cover each other.  
  
After a few more minutes of fighting, the Zerg are lying dead or dying, among many humans as well. The Marine radios in that they had engaged a force of Zerg, took moderate losses, but are victorious. He turns and barks out "Everyone! Get the wounded to the med centre, and the dead to the morgue. Grab any weapons and ammo you need, then get to a bunker and fortify it! We gotta hold our ground till reinforcements arrive!"  
  
Five minutes of white-knuckled waiting later, there is another scream, and a shout wafts to the bunker where the Marine is crouched. "We're under attack! I repeat we are under att-" The Marine stands up and starts to go assist, but he stops when he sees three other marines rush by to help. He goes to sit back down, when he hears more screaming, and the three marines, along with the remaining survivors, come rushing back, firing as they run at some unseen pursuer.  
  
The Marine leaps up and runs to the door, and turns to see what had scared them so much. He finds out, and screams and runs himself. Charging down the corridor, followed by a scorpion-like monster, is a wave of Zerglings. He runs as fast as his bulky armour can run, and wishes he had a flame thrower or even a grenade.  
  
He comes upon a large group of allies, hunkered down behind boxes. He takes a leaping dive over them, quite a feat in that heavy armour, screaming "Open fire! Open fire!" as he passes. The men open up as soon as he's clear, and the Zerglings are massacred. The Scorpion-thing takes a hit on the abdomen, shrieks, and retreats back towards the front lines.  
  
The Marine stands up, and looks around. He's in front of the Command Center, and there are many more people around him, all nervous and twitchy. This doesn't look good, the Zerg have forced them back into a defensive position around their main buildings.  
  
Suddenly, a man standing beside him starts to scream, but it's cut off almost before he even starts, as his head explodes, spraying the inside of his helmet with entrails. Two spider-like creatures crawl out of the falling corpse, and pounce on one of the FireBats. The man starts clawing at them and screaming, as they attempt to stab his body with two long, piercing mouthparts.  
  
Screams seem to come from everywhere, as suddenly Zerglings and Hydralisks pour over the top lip of the trench-corridors like a living wave. Men are slaughtered, torn apart by the sheer number of Zerg.  
  
The Marine stands in the doorway of the Command Center, and peppers the Zerg with bullets. He sees the dropships appearing with reinforcements, and is just about to let out a whoop of happiness, when the three ships are slammed by several small flying Zerg. The ships explode in giant fireballs, littering the battlefield with flaming debris, causing more Zerg casualties.  
  
The Marine turns to run into the Command Center, and sees a Hydralisk finish killing the Commanding Officers after slipping in through a window. The Hydralisk hisses and lunges, catching the Marine while he's re-loading. The man whirls with e blow, and falls to the ground. With his one good eye, he spots the Medic, screaming and running towards him, a solid wall of Zerg behind her.  
  
Then everything goes black. 


	4. Birth of the Reaper

Author's Note: ...well, this is Chapter Three! ....waaaaaaaaay overdue, sorry about that. Anyways! Hope you like it!

Disclaimer: STARCRAFT is the property of BLIZZARD. Grim Reaper, Valkyrie, and any other original characters are property of me.

"Yes sir, I'll get right on it."

The image of Jim Raynor on the view screen flickers, but his laugh comes through clearly. "What did I tell you about calling me 'sir'? There is no formal titles here, just a bunch of 'terrorists and traitors'."

The man dressed in a black uniform, with Night-/Infrared-Vision goggles resting on his forehead nods and smiles. "I'm sorry si- I mean, Mr. Ra-...I mean...Jim... It's just that I've been in a formal military for so long that it's part of my blood."

Raynor nods, "Well, just keep at your job, and if you can't fix that little speech impediment, then we'll just have to use electroshock therapy." Raynor laughs, "I'm just pulling your leg....that reminds me. We've finished assessing your skills and potential for mass destruction," he chuckles at his little joke, then continues, "and have deemed you fully capable for the first mission we have for you. Along with your formal inductance into this little 'band', is your codename, which will be your name from now until you decide to leave our group."

The man nods, "Thank you si- Jim."

Raynor smirks "That's it, keep up the good work. I'm sending the files with your new identity to you now."

There is a beep on his monitor, and he presses the flashing button, bringing up the files on the screen. "Yes, I got them here."

"Good, I would suggest you memorize those files better than the back of your hand."

"I will, Jim....oh, what's this freckle on the back of my hand? I've never seen this before!"

They both get a good laugh out of that, "I'll see you during de-briefing, Agent. Raynor out." The screen beeps and goes black while the Ghost pores over the data files, committing everything into memory. He smirks when he reads his new code-name. "Heh, Grim Reaper...I like the sound of that"

He finishes reading the files, strips down, and climbs into his cot, pulling the sheets up to his ears. "Lights off." The entire room goes black as the computer complies with his order.

Grim sighs, tomorrow's gonna be a long day, he can feel it. He closes his eyes, empties his mind of everything, and, seconds later, is fast asleep.

He awakes the next morning to the sounds of nothing. He yawns and stretches out his arms, then rolls over and falls out of bed, as usual. He climbs to his feet, and stretches, then turns around to get his clothes from the closet.

What was unusual is that a woman, dressed the same way he is....or at least, he would be, if he was wearing any clothes, is sitting on the chair, looking at him.

Grim, being the calm, logical type of guy, immediately lets out a yelp of surprise and horror, then leaps into the closet, slamming the door closed behind him. The woman makes a stifled snort, obviously holding in her laughter. "Relax Commander, I've already seen you, so what's the point hiding it now?"

Grim steps out of the closet, fully dressed, complete with Night-/IR-Goggles on his forehead. "Because, I don't know you, and you are an intruder."

The woman laughs. "I'm Valkyrie, your partner for this mission. Didn't you read the data files?" Grim sighs, "Yeah, I did, but I thought I would meet my partner when we launched, not in my bedroom! And I had no idea that he was gonna be a she...Valkyrie, isn't that an Old Earth name?"

Valkyrie smiles and nods, "Yes, your one of the few to recognize it. It's Norse, and the Valkyries were the beautiful goddesses that chose who was to die, who was to live, and who was to go to Valhalla, the Norse Heaven."

Grim thinks, and nods, "A very interesting history...it looks like it suits you." He smiles, and offers his hand to her. "Grim Reaper, at your service. You obviously know what the Grim Reaper is, I assume?"

Valkyrie nods, hiding the trace of a blush by looking down, pretending to adjust a part of her suit. "Thank you....Grim Reaper? Well, if your record has anything to say, then I know that it suits you." She smiles, and takes his hand, using it to pull herself upright. "But it is I that is at your service, you're the Commanding Officer on this mission, I'm just a lowly Corporal."

After a small smile, that even he doesn't know why he did it, Grim looks to the door. "I think we should be moving out, the transport won't wait forever." Valkyrie nods, "Yes sir, I'll just get my things, and meet you at Hanger Bay 5-Alpha." She tosses him a casual salute, and walks out, purposefully making her butt sway just enough to hypnotize the man.

Grim blinks, shakes his head, and slaps himself after she's left. "Get your head on straight, she's your team-mate, so stop thinking about things like that!" He mutters to himself, "Great, first sign your going insane: You start talking to yourself." "Then shut up, idiot."

The hangar bay looked like you would expect a hangar to be, except for the minor detail that instead of a launch bay, you just simply fly out the airlock into space. It is the second-largest hangar in the flying base called _The Rusty Hammer. The Rusty Hammer_ is such an old model of Battlecruiser that it doesn't even have a Yamato Cannon, and has to rely on its immense hangars to spew forth clouds of Wraiths to defend it.

Grim enters the hangar by way of the high-speed omni-directional elevator, called jokingly the HiSOD by the crew. He looks out over the hangar, nearly filled to the brim with bought, stolen, scrounged, or otherwise acquired Wraiths, and old Dropships that should have been retired years ago, and are only holding together by she amazing skill of the base's mechanics...and maybe a bit of duct tape.

Standing beside one of the better-condition Dropships, performing a last-minute weapons inspection, is Valkyrie. Now that Grim has one, he takes that opportunity to perform an inspection of his own. He flicks down his multi-function goggles, and zooms in the scope. His team-mate shakes her head in annoyance at her gun, sending her silky blonde hair to sweep along her shoulders. She is built like the goddess Aphrodite, if a goddess carried a C-10 gun, numerous side-arms, and several unarmed combat awards.

Valkyrie suddenly stiffens slightly, and looks around, then directly at him, then smiles and waves. Grim mutters a curse under his breath, and flips up the goggles, and walks to the ladder leading down into the hangar pit. He doesn't bother to step down, he just grabs the guide rails with his hands, braces with his feet, and slides the 25 feet to the floor. He hops off at the last second, and walks calmly up to the Dropship. As he approaches, Valkyrie slaps together her gun, and stands up in attention. Grim smiles and tosses a casual salute. "Ignore the formalities; there are only two of us on this mission."

"Alright then, shall we get on our way then?" Grim nods to her, and gestures to the Dropship with a sweeping gesture. "Ladies first." Valkyrie laughs, and climbs into the ship, followed closely by Grim. They secure their 'luggage' and then there is a knock on the hull. Grim opens the doors, and two Dhopship pilots hop inside and head for the cockpit. The female pilot smiles at him, "Don't worry handsome, we two practically built this ship, we'll get you two to your target."

Grim smirks, "Thank you, pilot....Saunders. I appreciate it." He glances over at Valkyrie, who quickly abolishes the expression of annoyance. Once the pilots are sealed in their cockpit, Grim turns to her. "Is something wrong?" She snorts, "Fly-girls, all they think about is sex." Grim bursts out laughing, and has to clamp his bio-filter mask over his mouth and nose to contain it.

The com-system crackles to life, along with the rest of the ship, and the male pilot's voice echoes through the cargo hold. "Strap yourselves in nice and tight, we just got clearance, and we have a schedule to keep!"

To be continued...


End file.
